Bri­tain jails cleric Choudary for IS sup­port

RAD­I­CAL cleric An­jem Choudary, long a thorn in the side of Bri­tish au­thor­i­ties, has been jailed for five-anda-half years after be­ing con­victed of en­cour­ag­ing sup­port for Is­lamic State (IS) ji­hadists.

Sup­port­ers of the 49-year-old and his co-de­fen­dant Mo­hammed Miza­nur Rah­man – who re­ceived the same sen­tence – shouted “Al­lahu Ak­bar” (God is great­est) from the pub­lic gallery as the judge an­nounced his de­ci­sion, ac­cord­ing to an AFP jour­nal­ist.

Judge Ti­mothy Hol­royde, in the rul­ing handed down at the Old Bai­ley court, said Choudary was “cal­cu­lat­ing and dan­ger­ous” and had shown no re­morse.

Dressed in a white robe, Mr Choudary showed no emo­tion as the sen­tence was passed.

Com­man­der Dean Hay­don, head of the Metropoli­tan Po­lice’s Counter Ter­ror­ism Com­mand, said the men “cer­tainly had an in­flu­ence in rad­i­cal­is­ing others, poi­son­ing the mind of peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ties”.

“They were cer­tainly in con­tact with ter­ror­ists over­seas,” he added out­side court. –